At the same time, in Norway:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/oslo-traffic...
Road deaths in Oslo (pop. 673.000) in 2019:
Pedestrians: 0 Cyclists: 0 Children: 0
Totally different outcome from ”vision zero” - actually 0. Impressive.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/oslo-traffic...
Road deaths in Oslo (pop. 673.000) in 2019:
Pedestrians: 0 Cyclists: 0 Children: 0
Totally different outcome from ”vision zero” - actually 0. Impressive.
If urban politicians in cities "just short of the border" to Scandinavia like Berlin or Hamburg propose such measures, residents with traffic experience in both places will often chuckle, because car drivers but even more so cyclists are much more aggressive in Germany than in Scandinavia.
It is not uncommon for urban pedestrians in Germany to be more concerned with danger posed to them by cyclists than by cars.
As they should! Cyclists are often closer by and silent.
Add to the fact that many cyclists are using the bike for exercise and seem to want to keep pace at any cost.
But mostly - a car is made for running in to humans at relatively low speed, causing as little damage as possible.
Bikes not so much.
I’d much rather be hit by a car at 30km/h than a bike.
Come to think of it - drivers license for cars probably makes a difference as well.
Edit - anecdote:
A co-worker of mine got hit by a bike at a buss stop. Not really super fast, but oh my he got tangled. Punctured lung, ruptured spleen, broken ribs etc. He was off work for almost a year in total. A modern car would most likely not have caused him, or the rider the kind of damage they incurred.
With a bicycle I'm quite sure the odds of a fatality are <<1%
Getting hit by a bike a 30km/h might well get you killed though, judging from the state of my friend mentioned above.
A bike have no deformation zones and no slick surfaces to slide along.
Thank you for enlightening me with some numbers though.
A 100kg cyclist + bicycle vs a 1500kg car (+ driver)
A modern car have deformation zones and angles for you to basically slide along - you will never get the impact of that full mass.
A bike, well, you will come to a hard stop and it’s got metal rods sticking out here and there.
Getting hit by a bicycle at high speed is worse than what you’d expect, at least according to my personal experiences.
None of which is meant to imply that being hit by a speeding bike is harmless, of course.
Nonsense, all modern cars have deformation zones specifically for protecting pedestrians during collisions. All modern crash tests by EuroNCAP etc. have tests for such impacts and current results speak volumes for the improvements in this area.
https://www.euroncap.com/en/vehicle-safety/the-ratings-expla...
Here's the ratings for the Tesla Model 3 vs. pedestrians for example: https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/54117/pedestriancrashimage.pn...
You can see clearly the impact of the very soft bumpers designed specifically for such crashes.
I’m no expert by any means, but I’m certain though that pedestrian safety is considered when it comes to car design.
Having a crumple zone that absorb energy seems like it would work in favor of someone getting hit as well?
That protects the people in the car, not those outside. Being hit by those deformation zones _will_ hurt.
There is one thing that makes modern cars less dangerous to pedestrians, and it's that when someone is hit by a car they are more likely to roll over the hood than under the wheel. HOWEVER this is only the case for sedans, and definitely NOT for SUVs. Now look at the proportion of SUVs in your area.
(But I don't know what the figures mean.)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2018.10.018 at https://s23705.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Pedestrian...
That would be including the accidents where the car never stopped, e.g. backing out from a garage and running over a toddler the driver didn't see.
Not someone slowly backed over by massive vehicle, which is most likely included in the death count.
Slow backing car vs slow bicycle? I take impact with slow bike every day.
Just awful. He barely survived, being reasonably fit and not too old/weak.
If it was my choice - yes I would, assuming a somewhat modern car.
I've taken to carrying an umbrella everywhere, swinging it quite dramatically as I walk. This seems to be an effective way to cause cyclists to keep a safe distance.
What in the hell was going on there? I mean, I get GP's point about aggressive cyclists. I noticed them in Berlin especially (straight, wide roads on flat terrain), but even then people will usually try to brake before they run into you. This kind of damage sounds insane. Was the cyclist hitting him at full-speed? If so, how???
You have main road, then a curb followed by a bicycle lane followed by a buss stop with a pedestrian sidewalk behind it.
If you want to get to the buss you need to cross the cycle-lane.
If the cyclist is careless and speeding, and you maybe are not paying enough attention, bad stuff can and do happen.
Just the other week a guy got hit in the arm by a slow riding bike while waiting, which made him so pissed he grabbed the bike rider by the arm and kind of threw him to the ground.
People had to separate them from fist fighting.
At 30km/h you’ll have approx ~5 deaths of 100, by car.
I don’t think you’ll have much less by bike at those speeds but injuries might well be worse - see stats of hospital times car vs bicycle.
So, no.
Tourists who are simply not used to a system where cyclists get equal importance as cars.
Of course, since cyclists are humans, I’m sure there are some assholes, and there are probably cases where non assholes also make mistakes.
The difference, as the numbers clearly show, is that in cities where the biggest fear is mad max cyclists, the number of deaths are hundreds fewer than where car driving is the norm.
Most European cities advocated a different approach, where bikes had their own infrastructure built out that meant European cyclists ride slow “Euro” style bikes with baskets, usually don’t go very fast, etc.
Further, good infrastructure means that bicyclists never have to interact with pedestrians other than in well controlled areas with proper signals etc that make clear when the cyclists should be moving and when the pedestrians.
I traveled to Mumbai, India twice in the last year a few months apart. Certain intersections that I traveled through on a daily basis used to have vehicles inching into the intersection well before their lights turned green, which usually caused problems, in the first trip. In the second trip, only a few months later, this had almost completely disappeared. The reason was the installation of I believe cameras, that ticketed cars if they entered the intersection on red, and this created enough of a change that two people visiting a few months apart would have diametrically opposite views of the driving culture of that region of the city.
There are a lot of well behaved cyclists, but there is also a hard-core of aggressive cyclists who seem to take it as their right to never have to slow down for anyone or anything, and woe betide you if you get in their way (e.g. the guy in that article above who was jailed after killing a pedestrian had the excuse that he shouted at her to get out of his way, so it was her fault for getting hit). They will go through red lights, turn the wrong way, go down the wrong way of one-way streets, barrel through pedestrian crossings while people are crossing, ride along pedestrian paths etc etc etc.
They are much more dangerous than cars purely because of their unpredictability (compared to cars which 99.9999% of the time do what you expect - like follow the rules, don't drive along the pedestrian paths etc) and sense of being untouchable I guess. Not everything ends in a death like this poor lady, but there are countless near-misses and people having to jump out of the way from cyclists who refuse to slow down or go through red light etc etc every day - it is happening all the time in London and you see it multiple times each day.
There was talk after the events in the linked article about forced registration plates for cyclist to try and bring some sort of accountability, but I think that was shelved "because environment" or something.
However what I fear the most isn’t cars or other cyclists but mopeds and motorcycles, especially ones with high acceleration. I’ve seen mopeds sneak up on cycle lanes, block up the cycle bay at the front of intersections (which is scary when you are on a bicycle in those bays because the mopeds don’t necessarily accelerate in a straight line) and worst of all, accelerate fast when the light turns from red to orange. The last is an issue because unlike cars the acceleration is much quicker - I’ve witnessed last-minute pedestrians crossing an intersection get startled or almost hit by mopeds accelerating too early.
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/1...
It also says Norway as a whole has a death rate of 23 per million, not much lower than the uk (1 in 26)
Where do you get that 23? I looked it up and see 21.6. The average before the vision zero stuff started was much higher, BTW.
https://www.ssb.no/transport-og-reiseliv/artikler-og-publika...
https://www.tryggtrafikk.no/pressemeldinger/109-omkom-i-traf...
I don't suppose it really matters, considering how the graph for the past 20 years looks ;)
It’s probably easier to keep numbers down in less populated areas as well.
I’ve driven in London, as a rightie, and if those numbers checks out I’m equally impressed!
Narrow, people, cars and scoters everywhere. It felt crazy at times, but I’m sure using the “wrong” side of the street compounded the issue. :)
Impressive result, but i don't think it's reproducible much elsewhere.
I got overtaken over a blind corner in a 50 zone, by a car doing around 100... Had to quickly get off the road once when I realised an oncoming truck wasn't going to slow down or budge, one tyre slipped off the road (or rather there was a crack on the edge of the road, flicked my steering into the woods). Also experienced being in a Tesla driven by an otherwise calm girl, was both fearing for my life and excited the entire time haha.
Would definitely do a road trip around Norway again, and stick to the more scenic routes again, however. So much fun, and so much beautiful scenery. Maybe the latter was what impeded my driving ability :)